PR 



"My- :''::■: , 
$:f^ ■.■•.". '■ 

y\- iV'J»'' . ■' ■' •• 



^ ^^1 






"fir::;. 










/f^ 



The Return to Nature 



" Her brothers zvere the craggy hills ^ 

Her sisters larchefi trees ^ — 
Alone with her great family 

She lived as she did pleased 

John Keats. 



The Return to Nature 

Songs and Symbols 



MARY DUCLAUX 

(A. Mary F. Robinson) 

Author of : The Italian Garden, Collected Poems , The Life of Retiatty 
The Fields of France, G-c, drc. 



CHAPMAN 6- HALL 
1904 






5n /iDemotiam. 



Emile Duclaux, 

Who died suddenly, May 3rd, 
1,904; 



/ 5-^^ 



/^ 



r-d 



To 

EMILE DUCLAUX 



For thy brows benign and calm, 
Here I bring no branch of palm, 
Nay, nor oak-leaves red and brown 
Twisted in a civic crown, 
Nor Apollo's shining bay — 

I've no laurel in my posies ! 

Here are little things, but roses 
That shall last as long as they. 



April, 1904. 



Fain would I be the bard who sings 
To show the proof of hidden things. 
Whose dreams d nights take shape and give 
The world a better way to live, 

A nursling of the gods is he ! 
I can but sing the thing I see^ 
Content if through my music pass 
Some rustling of the summer's grass, 

JVay, far too vast for me^s the girth 
And frolic grandeur of our Earthy 
Whose dancing forces aye combine 
In life, or lightning ; wit, or wine, 

I sing the fearless flight of birds, 
The life of farmers and their herds, 
Or such old tales of fount and fell 
As watching shepherds wake to tell. 

And yet my country friends shall praise 
The mirror of my roundelays. 
For — brook and blossom, dove or daw — 
Believe me, what I sing, I saw ! 



Contents 



Part I. 

Page 

The Daydream 9 

An Old Air with Variations lo 

Weather ii 

The Tyrant of the Stream... 12 

Mother Love 15 

The Old Farmer 16 

St. Peter's Day 18 

The Drowned Shepherd ... 19 

The Woodcutter of Aris ... 20 

The Huntsman 22 

The Fox in Auvergne ... 24 

Jenny Wren 25 

The First Wood -fire 27 

Part II. 



A Mild Day in March 


• 31 


Tree Talk 


• 31 


A Riverside in May ... . 


• 32 


The Magpies 


• 33 


Bird-notes in May ... . 


. 34 


The Glen 


• 35 


Inter Pares 


• 36 


The Redstart 


. 36 


August Silence 


• 37 


The Strawberry Woods . 


• 38 


Nightfall in Harvest-time . 


. 39 



Page 

Autumn Woods 40 

Sunset in September 40 

Old Maids in October ... 41 
The Garden in October ... 42 
Song 43 

Part III. 

The Return to Nature ... 47 

The Lark at Pontoise ... 48 

The Trees and the Flowers 49 

The Lime on the Crag ... 50 

Hope 50 

The New Friend 51 

The Water Lily 51 

The Birth of a Spring ... 52 

Men and Trees 54' 

Science and Poetry 55 

Lyric 56 

Recurrences 57 

In the Barn 57- 

Sowing 59 

All Saints 60 

All Souls 61 

Part IV. 
Harvest : two Idylls 65 



Part I 

The Village 



PHnted by S. Clarke, 
^8, Sackville Street, Manchester. 



The Return to Nature 



THE DAY-DREAM 

Without, the traffic shakes the dusty street, 
I sit entranced ; I neither hear nor see 't : 

I know a hollow in the mountain-side . . . 
All round, the forests mantle far and wide. 

A rock of basalt rears a columned wall 
Whence toppling falls a snowy waterfall — 

Plumb on the crest, there springs a mighty pine ; 
From every branch the hanging lichens twine. 

And, right below, a round and rocky pool 
Receives the plash of waters frothing cool. 

On either side, a mountain-rosebush grows, 
Starred over with the innumerable rose. 

Wet with the waterfall's incessant rain . . . 
When shall I taste that happy wave again ? 

Or tread thy sombre peak remote from man, 
O lonely many-fountained Lioran ? 

Au Lioran. 
2S August, igoj. 



lo The Return to Nature 

AN OLD AIR WITH VARIATIONS 
To E. D. 

'* Come live with me and be my Love, 
And we will all the pleasures prove 
That hills and valleys, dale and field, 
And all the craggy mountains yield." 

We'll milk our ewes among the flocks. 
We'll rifle honey from the rocks. 
The mountain cherries dark and sweet 
Shall drop belated at our feet. 

At noonday, if that hour be long, 
I'll cut a reed and pipe a song 
How men and fairies dwelt of old 
By farm and pasture, fount and fold. 

Where most the thyme grows thick and deep 
I'll pull a cushion for thy sleep. 
And heap it in a forest-glade 
Where mosses prosper in the shade. 

Last week I watched the chestnuts fall 
And treasured many a spiky ball ; 
I'll build a fire against a stone 
And roast my hoard for thee alone. 

But when the night falls soft and chill 
We'll seek the house behind the hill 
Where lamp and flame and linen bright 
Are all arrayed for thy delight. 



The Return to Nature 1 1 

For thee, the partridge when we sup ; 
For thee, the custard in the cup ; 
The peach whose kernel split in two. 
And th' Orleans plum that 's red and blue. 

And thou shalt sleep amid the down 
That pleached our gander's pinion brown, 
Nor wake until the sunlight fall 
In lattice-shadows on the wall. 

If herds and golden harvest fields. 
Or fruit the reddening orchard yields — 
If such delights thy mind may move, 
Then live with me and be my love. 

Olmet. 
Septeinber, igo2. 



WEATHER 

Everything is fruit to me 

Which thy seasons bring, O Nature! 
I make honey, like a bee. 
From thy blooms, what e'er they be. 

Any scent or sort or stature. 

When it rains, I love the rain : 

Watch it drift along the mountain 
Like a cloud ; or now again 
Burst abundant o'er the plain, 
Every tree a dropping fountain ! 

While the thunder shakes the skies. 

While the gashing wild-fire dances. 
Still I feast my dazzled eyes. 



12 The Return to Nature 

Till — O wonder ! O surprise ! — 

Bright the painted rainbow glances ! 

When the sky 's an azure fire, 

Every roof-top trembling whitely ; 
When the cattle seek the byre, 
When the roses thirst and tire, 
Hail, O Sun ! I shine as brightly ! 

But I laugh in winter-time 

When my sleigh divides the forest : 
Diamond boughs encased in rime ! 
Higher, further, let us climb ! . . . 

Naught, O Nature, thou abhorrest. 

Everything is fruit to me 

Which thy seasons bring, O Nature ! 
I make honey, like a bee. 
From thy blooms, whate'er they be. 

Any scent, or sort, or stature. 

Obnet. 
10 A ugtist, igos. 

THE TYRANT OF THE STREAM 

A heart to feel, an eye that sees, 
A mind that loves to poise and seize, 
I bring thee. Nature, humbly wooed 
Through many a year of solitude. 

Thy ways, O Mother, are not ours ! 
We shrink from thy mysterious powers ; 
So I adore, and still I pale 
To watch the stirrings of thy veil. 



The Return to Nature 13 

Thou hast thy secret ! Good and ill 
Are one to thine eternal will : 
The tyrant is thy dearest son, 
And every triumph duly won. 

And I, among the rustling reeds, 
Have stood and mourned for thy misdeeds ; 
For where the flag-flowers bend and wave 
I've seen the river as a grave . . . 

The waters ran in silky rills, 
The thunder rumbled in the hills, 
The sky was purple overhead 
With flocking clouds as grey as lead. 

And all our echoing backwater 
Rang with the frogs' insistent chirr. 
A snake swam silent o'er my path 
And glided tow'rds the noon-day bath. 

I followed. In that sultry noon 
The river-world looked cool and boon : 
A liquid depth the may-fly studs, 
And bubbled o'er with lily-buds. 

But lo ! athwart the glassy stream 
I watched a shimmering arrow gleam. 
The rapid fish went trembling past : 
What terror made them flee so fast ? 

Only in dreams we know such fear 

As hunts them through the waters clear — 

Dreams of an antenatal day 

When we were swift and weak as they — 



14 The Return to Nature 

A myriad rippling silver things 
Shot by, as if on water-wings ; 
Minnow and trout and perch, in shoals 
That quivered 'neath the willow-boles. 

In sighing gusts the wind began ; 
The trees held talk unknown to man ; 
The thunder rumbled round and round 
With echoing and approaching sound. 

Zig-zag ! the lightning filled my gaze : 
A dance of blue, a violet blaze ! 
The mystery of life laid bare 
Rode naked on the thunder's blare. 

I stood and eased my dazzled sight 
Upon the stream, now void and bright, 
And watched the infrequent sudden stain, 
The plashing dimples of the rain. 

And so, deep down, at length I espied 
The Tyrant, shadowy, vague and pied — 
Grey as the water, grey and green. 
With spotted fins and sides of sheen. 

One great blind eye gazed up unseeing. 
Stretched out he lay, a shadowy being. 
The River-shark — the Water-shrike, 
Whom all fish fear : the hungry pike ! 

Full four feet long he lay, his jaws 
Wide open, laughing, sharp as saws ; 
He filled the river's softest bed, 
A tyrant delicately fed. 



The Return to Nature 1 5 

No dread hath he of heat or cold, 
Of lightning-flash or thunderbolt ; 
Obtuse, puissant, ruthless, blind, 
He breeds, and battens on his kind. 

I stood among the shivering reeds — 
Nature, I mourned for thy misdeeds ! 
The tyrant is thy dearest son, 
And all his triumph duly won. 

A hundred years are as a day 
In yonder monster's sight, they say; 
And thy behest to all alive. 
Thine only gospel is : Survive ! 

And all of thy commandments : Thrive \ 

Olmet. 
ytily, igo3. 



MOTHER-LOVE 

The doves in the valley are cooing and calling, 

The doves in the wood ! 
High in the zenith, a kestrel's appalling 

Each nest with a brood ; 

Wailing the dirge of a victim, he utters 

The mournfullest cry : 
Look, in mid heaven he moves not nor flutters, 

A blot on the sky ! 

Wide-winged, silent, unstirring and steady, 

The bird seems to brood : 
See ! in a circle he swims, in an eddy 

He swoops ... on our wood ! 



1 6 The Return to Nature 

Wonder of wonders ! The doves in a cluster 

Arise from the nests ; 
Twenty as one, see, they mingle and muster, 

Grey wings and breasts. 

Twenty as one, see, they beard him and beat him, 

Buffet and blind — 
Pinions and talons extended, they meet him. 

The dread of their kind ! 

Far from their nest they repell the invader 

Red from the dove. 
Vanquished and wounded, a fugitive raider. 

Mighty is Love ! 

Bois (€ A vis, 
4 Jtdy 1903. 



THE OLD FARMER 

Ninety years of wet and fine. 

Labour, rest and play, — 
Ninety years of wheat and kine — 

Ended yesterday. 

None will mark the old farmer now 

Watch with shaded eyes 
How the youngster guides the plough 

Up the knolly rise. 

None will hear the old farmer more, 

From his inglenook. 
Teach a world of curious lore 

Writ in no man's book. 



The Return to Nature 1 7 

None like him, they say, of old 

Wielded flail or scythe, 
Pleached the wattles for the fold 

From the willow-withe. 

Grown too faint for sickle or flail, 

Still, in patient rows. 
Would the old farmer plant the kail 

In his garden-close ; 

Hive the bees, behind the mask ; 

Prune, with prudent knife : 
Great he deemed the daily task ; 

Little, death or life. 

Many a year, the falling leaf 
Fluttering from the bough 
Hath advised him : ' Life is brief ! 
Live and labour now ! ' 

Many a spring, he's watched the grain 

Rend the teeming earth. 
Shouting greenly : * Death is vain ! 

Hail the second birth ! ' 

Oft, a space of starry skies 

Mirrored in a pond 
Told him : ' Ay, though Man be wise, 

There is more beyond ! ' 

Ninety years of rain and drought. 

Foresight, toil and sway, — 
Ninety years of life and thought 

Ended yesterday. 



Olmet. 
JO July, igoj. 



1 8 The Return to Nature 

ST, PETER'S DA V 

The village streets are swept and clean, 

The village seems at play 

This morning ; 
Nor cart nor harrow to be seen ; 

For 'tis St. Peter's Day. 

The girls are wandermg on the leas, 

Among the woods, away. 

This morning, 
A-gathering wild-strawberries ; 

For 'tis St. Peter's Day. 

The lads have set a game of bowls 

Along the grassy way 

This morning, 
And laugh to see how smooth it rolls ; 

For 'tis St. Peter's Day. 

The farmers loll beneath the briar 
And prod their swaths of hay 
This morning. 

Or praise the cattle in the byre ; 
For 'tis St. Peter's Day. 

And housewives make their tables fine 
With bowls of curds and whey 
This morning. 

With spicy meats and Spanish wine ; 
For 'tis St. Peter's Day. 

5 7**iy, tgo3. 



The Return to Nature 19 

THE DROWJNED SHEPHERD 

Women tell i' the village still, 

When late our laddies roam, 
How the shepherd from Aira-Hill, 

Francis, never came home. 

Forth he strode i' the sunset-red, 

A lamb laid over his neck, 
** Wait at the weir " the farmer said, 

"Close the gate o' the beck." 

Steep and blue stands Aira fell 
Where white the waterfalls foam, 

Right atop the shepherds dwell ; 
Francis never came home. 

Well he knew each rood o' the way. 

Climbing higher and higher ; 
Up the fell, across the brae, 

Stand the fold and the byre. 

Did he stumble against the weir ? 

Slip and fall i' the loam ? . . . 
Oft we wonder, many a year : 

Francis never came home. 

There we found him the morrow morn, 
Drowned, his head i' the beck, 

Eyes aghast and locks all torn, 
A lamb laid over his neck. 

Women tell i' the village still, 

When late our laddies roam, 
How the shepherd from Aira-Hill, 

Francis, never came home. 



Ohnet. 

17 July, 1903- 



20 The Retur7t to Nature 

THE WOOD-CUTTER OF ARIS 

The wood-cutter of Aris 

Sat musing on a stone : 
" 'Tis twenty years since Nannie died, 

And Tm a man alone. 

" At break of day, I build the fire 

And scour the pot myseP, 
I fetch the cattle from the byre, 

The water from the well ; 

"Yet still when leaves are fresh in May 

And first the sun is warm, 
I fancy Nannie comes my way. 

The basket on her arm. 

" She whiles a pleasant hour with me, 

An hour and yet an hour ; 
We pass beneath the forest-tree 

The sunshine or the shower ; 

" She spies the callow wrens that race 

Naked among the grass ; 
Often, in many a hidden place, 

She hears the landrail pass ; 

" She marks the drowsy wood-hen drop 

Plumb to her mossy bed ; 
She laughs to see the robin hop 

About our scattered bread. 

^' For still she lives ; for still she's dear " 
(He stopped awhile and sighed). 



The Return to Nature 2 1 

" 'Tis twenty year, ay twenty year," 
(He said) " since Nannie died ... 

" And sore I miss the bonny wife 
That was so wise and good ! . . . 

Yet 'tis the same with man and life 
As with the springing wood. 

" And should I strike so heavy a stroke 

As fells it to the root. 
In course of years the living oak 

Will rear a second shoot. 

" So I could love an honest lass. 

Though none so fair or fine, 
I could love a friendly soul 

Who'd set her hand in mine ! . . ." 

The wood-cutter of Aris 

Looked out across the land ; 
Long he looked and long he thought, 

His head upon his hand. 

" Suppose I wed a canny wife 
With hair that's brown and grey ? 

She'll gang her gait, she'll live her life, 
She'll want her wish and way 1 

" And if I take a tender lass 

To fashion to my will. 
She'll love her image in the glass 

And play the maiden still — 



2 2 The Return to Nature 

" She'll sit beside me, dull and pale, 
She'll hang her head and sigh, 

She'll watch beyond the garden-rail 
The village-lads go by — " 

The wood-cutter of Aris 

Sighed — but 'twas half a groan — 
'' I think the spring makes old men mad I 

I'll live and die alone ! " 

Olmrt. 
4 Octobn-. 



THE HUNTSMAN 

The huntsman in our forest dwells ; 

And I have known him frail and sere 
And withered as the heather-bells 

That rattle in the falling year. 

Yet watch him stride along the glade. 
With what a gait, a grace, a fire ! 

There's not a man, there's not a maid, 
But looks and lingers to admire. 

A year ago this brave young man 

Was bent and old with snowy hair — 

(Children, believe me if you can ! 
Elders, believe me if you dare !) 

A graybeard, with a crusty wife 

As frail, as full of pains and aches ; 

They led the poacher's errant life 

And trapped the wild-fowl by the lakes. 



The Return to Nature 2 3 

This luckless couple, a year agone, 

In hiding set their covert snares, 
One autumn night as one by one 

Came limping forth the russet hares — 

They watched the wild hawks quit the woods 
To hunt, like harriers, o'er the plain ; 

While married crows with coaly hoods 
Fly past and seek the heights again. 

At last one raven, white with years, 

Flutters above the basalt rock 
Whose bitter waters drip like tears 

And scoop a hollow in the block. 

He scans the woods with ranging een, 
(For know that ravens never drink 

Unless unneighboured and unseen) 

Then stoops to skim the shallow brink. 

Transfigured, they behold him rise : 
Glossy as youth and black as night, 

He soars and cleaves the astonished skies. . . 
. . . Our poacher saw that magic sight. 

He too drew near the holywell, 

And wet a finger with its dew ; 
Upon his lip one dewdrop fell. . . 

And lo ! his dancing eyes are blue, 

The curls run clustering round his head. 

How straight he stands ! How free and young ! 
His laughing lips are firm and red. 

The words come rippling from his tongue ! 



24 The Return to Nature 

Wide-eyed, beside him waits his wife — 
Poor soul ! I hear her cunning laugh ! — 

(Too often in the course of life 

Women would be too wise by half) 

She cried : " No spot or drop for Me ! " 
She knelt, with pouting lips she drank, 

Sucking ; she rose a maiden free . . . 
A girl . . a child. . (But still she shrank.) 

A newborn baby creased and pink 
That shivers in the naked blast — 

Great Heaven! and still she seems to shrink !- 
Too small for sight, she breathes her last ! 

Taste but the spray of fairy springs^ 
The cream of Life ^ the fruits that fall ; 

Remember^ in the happiest things^ 
Excess is worse than none at all 

Paris. 
2 February, ig04. 



THE FOX IN AUVERGNE 

The boys of the valley have brought me a fox 

Entrapped in a snare ; 
This morning on quitting his hole i' the rocks 
He tripp'd on a tangle in front of his lair. 

Not russi^t, nor red, but a dun-coloured brown ; 

'Tis a fox of the hills : 
A hunter of partridge, a drinker of rills. 
Now entrapped in a sack to be taken to town. 



The Return to Nature 25 

Will I buy him ? Not I ! All the poultry-yard clucks 

In alarm at the foe ; 
A panic of terror has spread to the ducks 
And the geese stand a-flapping their wings in a row. 

Ay, look at the lamp-coloured glare of his gaze 

Is it green ? Is it gold ? 
'Tis a fearless dismay and a haughty amaze ; 
'Tis the soul of a savage unfettered and bold. 

Ye lads of the furrow and harrow and yoke, 

Is freedom a sin ? . . . 
Yon wildings and women are friends and akin. 
Mere vagrants and outlaws, untameable folk ! 

Here, take him ! Adieu ! What a noise on the ponds ! 

(There's a slit V the sack, 
Brother Renard I Be wily! one leap from thy bonds I — 
So be off to the mountains and never come back I) 

Olmet. 

5 y-uiy, 1903- 



JENNY WREN 

Our Colin ploughed the bracken-fell 

A year ago come yesterday ; 
And what adventure him befell 

Now learn and listen all who may. 

The coulter stumbled on the croft. 

And from the stone there sprang a wren ; 

Our Colin flung his cap aloft 

And caught wee, cock-tail Jenny then. 



2 6 The Return to Nature 

" Colin, grant me a pardon free ! 

Grant me a grace ! (so plain she spake) 
And I will rede ye counsels three 

Shall make ye wiser than fox or snake. 

*' Colin, grant me a pardon free 1 

Now grant my life, as Christ ye shrive ! 

So will I rede ye counsels three 

Shall make ye wiser than man alive ! " 

Colin settled his hand in 's hair : — 

" Thou'rt nobbut small for the spit (says he) 
I'll grant thy pardon, thou fowl o' the air ; 

But rede aright thy riddles three." 

Up shot the bird and sang full bold — 

" Believe no tale beyond belief ! 
Desire no treasure out of hold ! 

Bewail no loss in wanton grief ! " 

Colin stooped ; a stone cast he : 

" My witless granny's wise as thou ! " 

Jenny soared i' the air, scot-free : 

" Ah, Colin ! If thou hadst me now 1 . . . 

" For know that, by a quaint device. 

Among the feathers of my leg 
I wear concealed a pearl of price — 

And bigger than an ostrich-egg. 

" No need to plough — no need to toil — 
For whoso finds that secret gem ; 

He might be lord of all the soil 

That spreads from here to Bethlehem." 



The Return to Nature 27 

What wrath was Colin's as he heard ! 

Not once he swore, not twice, nor thrice . . , 
To think his hands had held the bird 

And left unloosed the pearl of price ! 

Now aye he'll plough the unyielding clods, 
He'll rise at three on summer days, 

Or yawn beside the smouldering sods 
When winter drowns the village ways. 

He'll toil, he'll tire, or want and beg . . . 

But hark 1 what fairy sings on high ? 
" Shall Jenny wear an ostrich-egg, 

That scarce is larger than a fly ? 

*^ Believe no tale beyond belief ! 

Nor weary for imagined gold ! 
Bewail no loss in wanton grief ! . . . 

But what thou hast, my Colin, hold ! " 

Olmet. 
jS yune, 190J. 



THE FIRST WOOD-FIRE 

In August or September 

We light the first wood-fire . . . 

Yon oak is for our ember 
And the elm is for the lye. 

But the bonny beech, remember, 
For the flame that leaps on high — 
The flame that dances high. 
Ever higher 1 



28 The Return to Nature 

Lay down those heavy bellows ! 

The fire will burn alone. 
A heart of ember mellows 

r the prunings of the plum, 
Embossed with lichen-yellows 

And blobs of amber gum ; 

Here's twig and moss and gum, 
Bark and cone ! 

The chestnut puffs and sparkles 
And spits the coals afar, 

Your surly poplar darkles 

And the alder's cold and coy, 

But the bonny beech-bough crackles 
In a flame of living joy : 
It fain would sing for joy 
Like a star ! 

Till mere and fountain freeze on 

Our moors, and ways are mire, — 
Through all the summer-season — 

The sunshine loves to play 
About our peaks, our trees on, 

With many a burning ray ; 

The boughs have kept the ray : 
'Tis the fire ! 

OlmeU 
30 August, igo3. 



Part II 

A Summer Out of Doors 

Olmet, 1903. 



The ReUir^i to Nature 31 



A MILD DA Y IN MARCH 

The southern wind blows mild and soft, 
fl%The grass springs in the dene, 
On every bush in spinny and croft 

The ripe round buds are seen : — 
Green eyes and brown, brown eyes and green, 
Tha,t open to the summer's sheen ! 

Though half the birds are over seas, 

The chaffinch pipes her best, 
The wryneck calls pewk ! pewk I \! the trees. 

The tiny golden-crest 
High i' the fir-top builds her nest, 
While sings the thrush with spotted breast. 

When eyebright flowers beneath the hedge, 

So frail and blue and gay. 
When dangling willows o'er the sedge 

Their downy catkins play. 
Be sure the Summer looks our way : 
A month of morrows brings the May ! 



I 



TREE-TALK 

Might I understand, O Trees ! 

Your green and rustling voices : 
All you whisper to the breeze 

With hushing, swishing noises : 



32 The Return to Nature 

Sorrows of the soughing pines, 

Delight of limes a-flutter, 
Hermit-joys the beech divines. 

Or spells the old oak-woods mutter ; 

Might I share, O talking boughs. 
Your deep mysterious spirit — 

I'd renounce the life, the vows, 
The soul that I inherit ! 



A RIVERSIDE IN MA V 

The stones below are grey and red. 

The waters curdle blue. 
The willows meeting overhead 

Let rifts of sunlight through ; — 
The stones below are red and gray. 

The leaves quake in and out. 
And lo ! the river slips away 

As motley as a trout ! 

A chain of pearls the acacia swings 

From every spray upstream ; 
Aslant, the generous elder flings 

A feast of curds and cream ; 
And, hidden in the hazels near, 

How wild and loud and gay 
One blackcap sings the sweet o' the year 

On this last morn of May ! 



The Return to Nature 33 



THE MAGPIES 



** A Pdque fleurie 
Les ceufs soni sous la pie." 



On yonder ash-tree's barren crest 

There swings a tangle against the blue ; 

The magpie's on her ragged nest 

Built with a hole she watches through. 

The father-magpie is far afield : 

Hop, hop, hop, as he follows the plough 
He pecks the food the furrows yield : 

Grain and maggot and worm enow. 

He knows the thymy mountain-track 

Where Tamsin feeds her flocks in peace ; 

And, perched upon the wether's back, 
Chatters and battens among the fleece. 

Although he leads a farmer's life, 

Fantastic, elegant and gay. 
He flutters, he and his dainty wife. 

Dressed so dandy for every day. 

** Two, joy ; one, sorrow," sing the hinds . . 

Nay, sprites of glib and mocking glee, 
The magpies laughing in the winds 

Are each and ever a joy to me ! 



34 The Retiir?i to Nature 

BIRD-NOTES IN MA Y 

From every wood^on hill or plain 

A thousand notes arise, 
From holts that clothe the steep o' the vale, 

And hursts that crown the rise ; 
Willow-wrens build in spinny and field 

Twittering sweet and shrill ; 
And hark ! the cuckoo's clarion-cry 

Rings out across the hill ; 

The hay-swaths fall, 

And the landrails call 
As the scythe comes mowing through ; 

The jeer of the jay 

Rattles harsh and gay 
As he flies in a flash of blue ! 

One blackbird sings above the rest — 

O fluting liquid note ! 
O song of juice and bloom and sap 

That swells the mellow throat ! 
O plaints that drop, and pierce and stop, 

O burst abrupt and sweet. 
That cherry-tree and laurel-bush 

Re-echo and repeat ! 

While skylarks rise 

In the dazzling skies 
And carol as keen and bright. 

As pure and fine 

As stars that shine 
And trill on a frosty night. 



The Return to Nature 35 

Between the blackthorn and the rose, 

The birds are wild with glee ; 
The yellow-hammer's seven notes 

Go lilting down the lea ; 
The rock-doves blue in the coppice coo 

And murmur to their brood ; 
Tarak-kakkah I the wood-pecker 

Laughs in the lonely wood ; 

Till daylight fail, 

Till the kestrels wail 
And pounce with steely claws ; 

Till the red sun drops 
, Through the darkling copse 
In a clamour of rooks and daws. 



THE GLEN 

Come with me and come away. 
Let us pass the burning day 
Where the shade is cool and sweet ; 
IVe a glen, unknown to men. 
Hidden where the mountains meet. 

There the rocks fantastic rise. 
Gaunt and slender, giant-wise 
Reared among the trembling woods : 
Ashes frail, and birches pale, 
Beechen-columned solitudes. 

These upon the sides be set : 
Lower down the violet 
Stars a long and lawny nook, 



;^6 The Return to Nature 

Wherein white, and cool, and bright. 
Babbles the open-hearted brook. 

Come with me and come away — 
There we'll sit and sing all day 
Quite sequestered from the skies . . . 
Waters fall . . . cushats call . . . 
Blue all round the mountains rise. 



INTER PARES 

Circling swallows skim and fly 

On a gliding wing ; 
Skylarks shooting up the sky 

Soar aloft and sing ; 

Light as balls of thistledown 

Dreamy barn-owls drift ; 
Like an arrow sharply flown 

Speeds the darting swift ; 

Who shall say what realms unsought, 

Flashing, they may find ? 
Flight may range as far as Thought, 

Motion rival Mind ! 



THE REDSTART 

Less sweetly than the inspired nightingale — 
(Yet passing sweet I find thy hurrying song) 
Thou warblest in the poplar all day long 

Or sitst, a spot of russet, on the rail. 



The Return to Nature 37 

Thou lovest the orchard and our village ways, 
And oft I watch thee on the sunny law^n 
Flirting thy tail, as dogs do when they fawn — 

But 'tis the redbreast that our children praise. 

Thou art nowhere first ! Unknown and un- 
acclaimed 
Thy song and presence grace the summer 

time : 
And I, dear bird, I chant as humble a rhyme, 
And all the sweeter that 'tis never named. 



AUGUST SILENCE 

Even as a soul that knows the secret place 

Where all that lives is One 
May wake one morn to find the fount of grace 

Dry, and the refuge gone ; 

In all our summers such a pause is heard 

With myriad music mute : 
An August silence falls on every bird 

And hushes pipe and flute. 

The blackbird busy with the ripening plum. 

The redstart in the hedge. 
The yellowhammer by the brook, are dumb ; 

The sedge-bird on the sedge : 

The moon no longer hears the nightingale ; 

And, hanging in the skies. 
No more the woodlark warbles o'er the vale 

Until the dawn arise. 



38 The Return to Nature 

Yet patience ! Autumn brings the skylark's strain. 

The music of the thrush, 
And thou, my soul, thou too shalt hear again 

Thy living fountains gush ! 



THE STRAWBERRY-WOODS 

As crimson as Adonis' blood 
That sparkled on the ground. 

In drops of red about the wood 
The strawberries are found. 

A laughing bargain of our walks 
Hath set this order : Thine 

The strawberries with nodding stalks ; 
The purple whorts are mine. 

Since either finds his fellow's hoard, 
Thy labours, Dear, are few : 

Not oft our mossy woods afford 
Yon myrtles flecked with blue. 

But every bank and rocky ledge 
Whereon our beechwoods root 

Is mantled to the embroidered edge 
With strawberry-leaves and fruit. 

perfect, elfin, pearly flowers, 
Berries like drops of blood, 

1 never spent serener hours 

Than in your craggy wood ! 

Yet, as we call from bole to bole, 
The laugh upon my lip 



The Return to Nature 39 

Dies, and a tremor chills my soul 
To feel the summer slip. 

How sure, how swift, we run our race ! 

How soon the best is flown ! — 
And one of us may live to pace 

The strawberry-woods alone. 

NIGHTFALL IN HARVEST-TIME 

The shepherdess that feeds her flocks 
And twirls her distafl" as she goes 

Turns homeward when the western rocks 
Show black against a bar of rose. 

The reapers rear an aching back ; 

Full-throated youngsters, tall and lithe, 
Go shouting down the meadow-track 

With glints of light on every scythe. 

And, like a ship, across the weald 
Slow sways the toppling harvest-wain, 

That leaves the bright uplying field 
To cross the shadows of the lane. 

The unharnessed oxen ford the stream 
And sup the rippling waters now ; 

The sunset shoots a yellow gleam 

That glints upon the abandoned plough. 

O Night that bringest all things home. 
The children to their mother's knee. 

The hinds that toil, the herds that roam, 
Bring my Beloved home to me. 



40 The Return to Nature 

AUTUMN WOODS 

When the gold's on the birch 

And the heather's in bell, 
Oh the woods in September, 

So sweet do they smell ! 
'Tis the leaves as they perish, 

The mushrooms that spring, 
And the ghost of the violets 

That died in the spring ! 

With the bronze on the beech 

And the cherry aglow. 
The hills of October 

How pleasant they show ! 
The flush on the orchard, 

The rust of the woods : 
'Tis the sunset of summer 

That broadens and broods ! 



SUNSET IN SEPTEMBER 

The sunset has painted a line on the wold : 
'Tis the mellowest pink you can find ! 

The birch on the rock is a fountain of gold 
With the blue of the valley behind. 

There's a chiming of bells, there's a lowing of kine. 
There's a tramp by the spinny of thorns ; 

And the cows wander home in a shadowy line 
'Neath a glimmering crescent of horns. 



The Return to Nature 41 

And Fan of the Farm, with a scarf on her hair, 
And a lantern hung low at her feet, 

Slips by like a fairy, all golden and fair 
In the brown of the long village-street. 

And still in the barn there's a thud of the flails, 
Where the labourers thrash in the dusk ; 

The girls come and go with the milk in their pails 
And a breath that is sweeter than musk. 

Now the sheep are in fold and thekine in the byre, 
And the birds are asleep in the nest ; 

The flame's on the hearth and the pot's on the fire : 
Come home to your supper and rest ! 



OLD MAIDS IN OCTOBER. 
Two things in Nature ever seem to me 
Types of the spinster's decent dignity, 
Aud both, in autumn garb disconsolate, 
I watch to-day beyond the garden gate .... 

One is the prim Gallina, neatly drest 
In robes of spotted silk, the very best, 
Precisely fashioned all in black and white. 
Cut to perfection, sober, plain and tight. 
She picks her way across the muddy yard, 
Arches her neck, salutes us, kind and hard, 
Her eyes fixed firmly on the beaten track. 
And calls to all that stray : " Come back! Come 
back ! " 



42 The Return to Nature 

Now lift your eyes above the noisy farm — 
Who shall forget the poplar's faded charm 
When drear October thins the fragile spray ? 
Pathetic and delicious in decay 
She bends — how slender ! — o'er the fleeting 

stream 
As though she watched the passage of a dream ; 
She trembles in her robes, too poor and frail 
To shield her shadowy figure from the gale, 4 
And wears with plaintive art and humble grace 
A golden wig above her drooping face. 



THE GARDEN IN OCTOBER 

The sun-flower, all her golden petals shed, 
Now hangs a head 

That bears a brown and savoury honey-comb, 
While yet the salvia rears a sheaf of red 

Beneath the maple's round and rosier dome. 

The chestnut boughs are yellowing or embrowned; 
Upon the ground 

Their fingered leaves go swirling down the walk 
Though still our ashwoods keep their green all round 

And hide the married magpies' mocking talk. 

One hollyhock hath one last bloom of all 
That fears to fall 

Upon a slanting staff unsurely set ; 
The honeysuckle berries on the wall 

Are quaintly wrought and black as beads of jet. 



The Return to Nature 43 

The Paris daisies and the vervein bright 
Make spots of light 

Below the painted zinnia down our ways ; 
The roses now renew their old delight 

And still at dusk the red geraniums blaze. 

But what are these few sweets that bloom and last 
To those o'er-passed ? 

O garden, Eden of our summer hours, 
Since thou must shed thy scents and fade so fast 

Receive a song in lieu of leaves and flowers ! 



SONG 

O rocky height and broomy fell 

Where Love and I have wandered- 
The foxglove and the heather-bell 
Will bloom upon ye full as well 
When Love and I are sundered ! 

We sat and sang on yonder leas, 
Those woods know all our wooing. 

Their very soul we seemed to seize ; 

Yet not a leaf on all their trees 
Would drop for our undoing ! 

O rocky height and broomy fell 

Where Love and I have wandered— 
The foxglove and the heather-bell 
Will bloom upon ye full as well 
When Love and I are sundered ! 



Part III 

One and All 



The Return to Nature 47 



THE RETURN TO NATURE 

How vast beneath the westering light 
Our wild and green volcano lay, 
As we went wandering yesterday 

Above the woods, across the height ! 

How fresh and free the west-wind blew ! 
' How far above the world we stood ! 
The foxglove hangs a bell of blood 
Against the wide horizon's blue. 

They say the swooping eagle drinks 
Of yonder fountain's overflow 

Where bed on bed of mountain pinks 
About the lava-boulders blow. 

And oft an otter swims the stream — 
A glossy head the v/aters wet — 

He spies the freckled trout agleam 
And bites them in the fisher's net. 

The mountain foxes make their lair 
In yonder hole the heather hides, 
Look, how the tussocked grass divides 

And sudden bounds the russet hare ! 

And where the thistles run to seed 
Amid a mist of thistledown. 



48 The Return to Nature 

Wee winglets flutter, gold and brown, 
For there the finches love to feed. 

Lo, still the antique Volcanoes keep 

For all unruly life a home ! 
They feed the wolf beside the sheep 

And place the rock above the loam. 

In thine enchanted atmosphere, — 

O wilding world ! O haunt of Beauty !- 

How fragile and how false appear 
The reign of Law, the rule of Duty. 

O world of larger, looser plan, 

Not often, but sometimes, ^tis well 
To climb thine ancient citadel 

And learn how small a thing is Man. 

Olmet. 
August, igo2. 



THE LARK AT PONTOISE 
In Memoriam J. D. 

The last time. Beloved, we listened to the lark 

We stood upon the gay green hills that rise above 
Pontoise — 
The last time we listened the soaring note to mark — 
And in the windy sunny sky we saw the skylark poise ; 
The song o'er-rippled hill and vale with such a flood 
of joys. 
The last time, Beloved, we listened to the lark ! 



The Return to Nature 49 

A hint of winter chilled the air, the woods were brown 

and stark, 
And yet the corn was ankle-high, and oh !,,the sun 

was bright, 
From every spur and spar of rock it struck a living 

spark 1 
And all that Easter-world of sun and wind was one 

delight, 
While still our shrill glad Angel sang, and still you 

murmured : Hark ! 
. . . The last time. Beloved, you listened to the lark. 



SONG 

The trees and the flowers 

Shall now be my Friend ; 
The trees and the flowers 

That never pretend. 
They keep to their nature 

As, quiet and true. 
They grow to their stature 

And bloom in their hue. 

The stars and the ocean 

Shall now be my Love : 
The stars, in their motion 

Unchanging above ; 
The tides, in their heaving 

So fresh to the breeze. 
Yet never deceiving 

The soul that foresees. 



50 The Return to Nature 

THE LIME ON THE CRAG 

Thunder-blasted, weather-beaten, 

Baffled all the winter-time ; 
Where the crag is torrent-eaten, 

Stands an ancient lime. 

Look, all the outer boughs are twisted ! 

There the leaves come small and loath, 
For too many a storm resisted 

Hath delayed the growth. 

Yet the hidden heart is sunny. 
Open broad to beam and breeze, 

Full of bloom and full of honey, 
Full of birds and bees. 

Lime, thou art of mine alliance ! 

I, too, know the storms that buoy. 
Solitary self-reliance. 

And a secret joy ! 



HOPE 

O Tempest of Autumn, that starvest 
The birds in the bushes and sedges, 

Mouldering the grain of the harvest 
And blasting the fruit in the hedges ! 

Hoar-frost of April, thou blighter 

Of burgeons and buds in the vineyard ! 

There's a spring that is safe from the smiter : 
Our peace and our plenty are inward. 



The Return to Nature 51 

We hope through the night for the morrow, 
We lift up our eyes to the mountains, 

We pass through the valleys of Sorrow 
And lo ! they are filled with fountains. 



THE NEW FRIEND 

O Heart, refrain thy vain delight 
. Nor quite accept the waking dream ! 
The enchantment and the unworldly light 
May prove a false and faery gleam. 

The years completer knowledge bring ; 

The heart's high hope may droop and fail 
Too oft we heard the woodlark sing 

And thought it was the nightingale ! 



THE WATER-LILY 

'^ Because I draw my source of life 

From deeper deeps than this, 
I float unharmed, tho' storms be rife, 
And flower upon the abyss : 
In no earthly meadows, 
But down thro' greenest shadows 
Of waters flowing free, 
My roots entwined be." 

And I, like thee, O queen of flowers. 
May float upon the tide. 



52 The Return to Nature 

Being held and fed by hidden^^Powers 
Who help me, though they hide ; 
The kingdom of space is 
A world of holy places, 
Whose founts of balm and rest 
Are welling in my breast. 

THE BIRTH OF A SPRING 

Nothing seems so pure and one 
And clear as fountain water ; 

Secret, hidden from the sun, 

The mountain's cloistered daughter ! 

See ! It sparkles from the rock, 
A burst of light and laughter. 

Sprinkling all the hoary block — 
The moss is greener after ! 

In a world where everything 

Is mingling, manysided. 
Here at least the simple spring 

Is one and undivided ! 

Unity ! Divinest dream 

That mocks our mortal reason, 

Here, perchance, you hide and gleam 
And tarry for a season ? 

Nay ! For not in earth or sky, 

In any time or era. 
Nor among the stars on high 

We find thee, bright Chimaera ! 



The Return to Nature 55 

Where we are not, there art Thou 
(We feign) and might we burrow 

Fathoms deep, to wander now 
Like moles beneath the furrow, 

We should watch the waters start 
From half a hundred sources : 

Gurgling from the mountain's heart 
Or rolled in shallow courses ; 

Torrents from the mountain-top, 

Or snows the winds unravel ; 
Founts upwelling \ rains that drop 

And pierce the clay and gravel ; 

Waters from the marshy woods, 

Delayed in dreamy mazes, 
Full of ferns and foxglove-hoods. 

Dead leaves and azure hazes ; 

Mineral springs that cleave the quartz 
Embalmed in salts and savours ; 

Flushings from the city marts 
Defiled by city flavours ; 

See ! they gather underground 

And meet at last and marry 
In some caverned lake profound 

Where all our waters tarry. 

Thence they rise and seek the sun. 
The mountain's bridal daughters . . . 

Nothing seems so pure and one 
And clear as Fountain-waters ! 



54 The Return to Nature 



MEN AND TREES 

Nay ! Even on our summer lea 
Things are not what they seem ! 

For men as trees that walk I see, 
And trees as men that dream. 

And often when we hoe the roots 

Among the stubborn clay, 
Or plough the fields, or reap the fruits. 

Or toss our swaths of hay ; 

The trees, deep rooted in the plain. 
That wave so cool and green. 

Look down (methinks) with some disdain 
On all our busy scene : 

** O men that labour, grieve and guess. 

Poor men that come and go. 
Our freedom, patience and idlesse 

Ye never seem to know ! '' 

But Nature in her mystic dance 

With all her souls at play 
Gives each in turn that happy chance 

And every dog his day. 

When we, deep rooted in the soil. 
Shall wave our boughs in June, 

Ye, birch and beech, shall ache and toil, 
Through all the burning noon ! 



The Return to Nature 



SCIENCE AND POETRY 



55 



Nature, O my great Companion — 

Mystic Mother of my soul — 
Must I stand apart, abandoned ? 

Watch a rival touch the goal ? 
And, ousted from thy breast, desire a beggar's 
dole ? 

There be men who unashamed 
Mark the rainbow's mystic arch ; 

Ne'er they felt the sap awaken 

On the first warm noons in March, 

Nor sobbed for joy to note the rose that 
studs the larch. 

Ne'er they smelt the poplar's burgeons 

Oozing with an orient gum. 
O'er the swamps of mountain-myrtle 

Heard the snipe's enamoured drum, 
Nor, thick i' the beanflower, watched the 
wild-bee thrill and hum. 

They, with impious hand arresting, 

Pluck thy garment by the hem, 
Rend the unseamed and sacred vesture, 

Careless of the scattered gem ; . . . 
And thou, O Nature, must thou prove the 
prey of them ? 

Stern as augurs mutely toiling 
O'er the victim's proffered gore, 



56 The Return to Nature 

They possess thee, they enjoy thee, 

Rifling all thy secret store — 
While I, who stand apart, I wonder and adore. 

I, so infinitely distant. 

Flung below thy rolling spheres ; 
I, who hear thy forests whisper 

Humbly, as the lichen hears — 
Judge between me and them ! O Mother, 
dry my tears. 



LYRIC 

Have I not said to my soul : 
" Slumber, O Spirit, and sleep ! 

What thing lures thee forth in the whole, 
Out in the dark, so deep ? 

" Are we not one. Thou and I ? 

Glide not out of my veins ; 
Into the stars and the clouds of the sky, 

Into the stones of the plains ! 

" Nay, but loiter and dream : 
List to the lisp of the leaves. 

Watch the roof-swallow dartle and gleam, 
White in the shadowy eaves. 

" Sweet is the surface of things — 
Ripples adrift on the pond — 

Nothing deeper the poet sings ; 
Look not, O Spirit, beyond !" 



The Return to Nature 57 

RECURRENCES 

Hush ! For a wonder has happened, a miracle, 
sudden, august. 
How shall I utter the marvel? Listen and un- 
derstand ! . . . 
Something stirred in my brain and the centuries stirred 
in the dust : 
Sudden I knew this hour, of old, in the self-same 
land. 

All have I known before (if the unborn I were I). 
All ! And all unchanged — to the star that laughs 
on the height — 
The scent of the honeysuckle, the course of the moon 
in the sky, 
The faint sound of the fountains, the hush of an 
infinite night. 



IN THE BARN 

I sought a refuge from the skies of June. 

The barn with yawning doors announced the boon 

Of shade and coolness, rest and fragrant hay ; 
So there I stayed the livelong afternoon. 

I closed the mossy gates ; full-length I lay 
And let the torrid daytime melt away — 

One wall was cleft, and where the cranny was 
I spied the world without : how vast and gay ! 



58 The Retur7i to Nature 

Against the sky the mountain's dazzling mass, 
Flawed by the sudden chasm of a pass ; 
Below, the river's long and liquid line 
Winding about the greenness of the grass. 

How bright the woods of aspen quake and shine ! 
Look on the nearer hill, the flowering vine ! 

How far and vivid through how mere a chink 
I see this vast and various world of mine. 

But half a willow shades the river's brink, 
And half a rose suggests a dream of pink, 

And half a tower is reared on yonder knoll . . . 
I see by fragments, as we feel and think ! 

So, in our twilit cavern of the Soul, 
We spy the brilliant vision of the whole. 

As near, as real, but incomplete and strange : 
The river flows with neither fount nor goal. 

O Time, why measure such a narrow range ? 
Hast thou, in all thine infinite of change 

Nothing but Now, Hereafter, and the Past ? 
^' Nay, blame the serried crevice of the grange ! " 

O Space, thou too art fettered hard and fast ! 
Of all the myriad forms thou surely hast 

Nothing but Three, O Space, nothing but Three ? 
'' The limits of thy vision are not vast." 

O moving Life, O world immense and free 
Circling all round in magic mystery. 

When down my wall at last shall crash and fall. 
Grant I may rear a fearless front, and see ! 



The Return to Nature 59 



SOWING 

The southern hill is striped with furrows now, 
The sower flings abroad a circling hand 
And casts the seed o'er all the steaming land 

Following the team that drags a stubborn plough. 

He, as he strides along the broken loam, 
Remembers August and the wheat in stacks, 
The harvest-home, the miller's floury sacks. 

The loaf upon the supper board at home. 

He sees the grain drop in the yawning field 
(The grain that knows mysteriously to shun 
The light, and how to sprout and seek the sun, 

And, shooting upward, grant a golden yield). 

Meanwhile the russet oxen toil ahead ; 

Patient, they trudge and climb the stony rise ; 

Beyond their task they feel the manger lies, 
And muse upon the goad in trembling dread. 

The coulter, too, that turns the unyielding land 
Feels^ as it flakes and furrows thro' the soil ; 
Remembering aye the blacksmith's fiery toil, 

It keeps the impression of a forming hand. 

Believe me, not unneighboured in his might, 
Man — aye, and all things ! — feels and recollects . 
The shattered mirror of this world reflects 

A mind as universal as the light. 



6o The Return to Nature 

ALL SAINTS 

Within the brown November wood 

I love to rest upon a stone 
And touch the heart of solitude, 

My dog beside me, all alone, 
So still the squirrels call at play. 
While through the thicket screams the jay. 

Across the valley, darkly blue. 
The hills upon the further side 

Appear the birchen-branches through 
And bough from golden bough divide ; 

Mid-air the russet kestrel flies 

And fills the valley with her cries. 

There is no wind, the wood is still, 
And yet methinks a fitful breeze 

Must rush in gusts along the hill ; 
For, — with a shiver in the trees, 

A thud, a dull mysterious : plop ! — 

The leaves in tawny packets drop. 

My dog disturbs his rumpled ears 
And whines asleep and dreams anew. 

While I, who chide him for his fears, 
I start and have my vision too . . . 

Nature ! I feel Thee all around ! 

And know the place is holy ground. 

So, even as little shepherd-girls 
Behold the Virgin, all in white, 



The Return to Nature 6i 

Float in a mist of rose and pearls 

Across the wanness of the night, 
And gaze in a delicious fear, — 
I feel a vaster Presence here ! 



ALL SOULS 

The brown November leaves forsake the woods, 
And tear in whirling drift along the ground ] 
Only the oak, embrowned, 

Still rustles in the gusty solitudes ; 

The trees reveal the nest where nothing broods 
And not a flower is found 

Nor any song of all the summer's mirth : 

Turn, turn thy wheels O round and rolling Earth! 

No more at dusk the yawning fern-owls roam 
And circle round the poplar's leafless rod. 
The wheatear quits the sod. 

The swallows all have sought their southern 
home. 

The great green woodpecker (that was in Rome, 
Picumnus, and a god) 

No longer strikes our lime's enormous girth : 

Turn^ tur7i thy wheels O round and rolling Earth I 

I feel thy sap sequestered in my blood, 

And in my voice thy songs, O barren hurst ! 
Our mother. Nature, erst 
Commingled man and bird and beast and bud, 
And wove us from the woof of fell and flood : 
She knows no last or first 



62 The Return to Nature 

Dividing all her souls in equal worth — 

Turn^ turn thy wheels O round and rolling Earth I 

From life to life she sees one ripple spread ; 

The mineral atom ravished by the rain 

Falls on the furrowed plain, 
Grows in the corn and gives our daily bread, 
And, ere it mingle with the dusty dead, 

Prompts an immortal brain 
That scales the stars thro' centuries of birth ; 
Turn^ turn thy zvheel^ O round and rolling Earth ! 

Even now, even here, even in this leafless dene. 
The Spirit of Life is rich in everything : 
The forest oak shall spring 
From this poor drift that was a summer's sheen 
And shall be earth and next a newer green . . . 

O Death, where is thy sting ? 
Art thou not change and hope ? O rolling Earth, 
Turn^ turn thy wheels revolving joy and dearth. 

Olmet. 
October, igoj. 



Part IV 
Harvest : Two Idylls 



The Return to Nature 65 



I 
THE QUARREL 

Esmond of Ronesque was our farmer then, 

Bounteous, benign, and big, a king of men ; 

His voice filled all the hollows of the hill, 

Calling his herds at dawn ; I see him still : 

The full red face, the mild and trustful eye, 

The bulk (a relic of an age gone by 

When mammoths ranged our vale), the way he stood. 

He lived in yon gaunt farm at Olmy-Wood, 

Two stalwart boys, a wife some twelve years wed 

Beside him. In the stable stood the bed 

Of young Monsalvy, foreman of his fields. 

The carter, quick to know which udder yields 

The creamiest milk, which soil the heaviest crop ; 

A nimble Celt was he — red-haired a-top. 

With freckled cheeks and light grey eyes that gleam ; 

Fierce to his fellows, friendly with the team. 

Summer is short and violent in our hills. 
'Twixt gale and thunder storm, the sun that kills 
Burns us as black and rugged as the soil. 
We rise at dawn, till supper-time we toil. 
Straining our sinewy arms and stooping backs, 
Till every starting muscle throbs and cracks. 
In June we cut the first tall meadow-grasses, 
And toss our swaths of hay, — the lads and lasses 



66 The Return to Nature 

Making a sport of toil as youth knows how — 
And on our sunniest slopes we set the plough 
To sow the buckwheat, all the frosts being done ; 
We mend our weirs and watergates ; we run 
The flushing river through our lower meads, 
Cleaning the water-courses of their weeds ; 
We shear our sheep and wash their tawny coats ; 
And in July we reap our earliest oats. 

All this the farmer does no less than we. 
He's up at cock-crow, in the fields by three, 
Setting each man his task ; alert and wise, 
He guides the plough up yonder knolly rise 
Where aye it swerves : he ropes the loads of hay 
That perfume all the valley on their way ; 
He tests the corn for sowing ; weighs the wool ; 
And when July is out he sells the bull, 
And buys a flock to graze the stubble down ; 
In croft, yard, grange or market, mead or town. 
From dawn till dusk the farmer's out of doors. 
It thunders, maybe, hails, or simply pours. 
Or dread of sunstroke drives the cattle home ; 
The beasts may shelter ; he, belike, must roam. 
No marvel if, ere all the corn's in grange. 
Tempers are short and farm-hands apt to change. 

There's still a kindness in our village ways : . . . 

When labourers want a bout on holidays. 

One — ploughman, shepherd, waggoner — stays at home 

Minding the farm, and lets his fellow^s roam. 

Our Lady's Day in earliest August fell 

That year ; from noonday till the supper-bell 



The Return to Nature 67 

It was Monsalvy's turn to fare abroad ; , 

But then another man should take the road. 

Gallant and gay, Monsalvy ran apace 

And sought the village Mill : a rambling place ; 

Vast granges white with flour ; a dripping wheel ; 

A sunny yard littered with sacks of meal 

And nets that dry i' the sun ; old hooded carts 

That go a-carrying to our mountain parts ; 

A vaulted cellar full of bins and tuns ; 

A kitchen with a rack of dusty guns 

And tables fit to feed a hundred guests ; 

A cavernous hearth, a flame that never rests 

Boiling a seething cauldron black as jet ; 

And by the fire one huge arm-chair is set, 

And there is Miller Maurice, lean and blithe. 

The merriest farmer ever paid a tithe : 

Host, yeoman, carrier, fisherman who vends 

His trout to manor-folk that feast their friends, 

Wit, mischief maker, vintner, gossip, wag, 

And sometimes poacher, with a lordly bag. 

The Miller lived at ease. No female face 

To vex him in the dusty ample grace 

Of all that careless household ; none to spy 

The bung left loose i' the vat ; no woman's eye 

To mark, severe, yon axle-pin that frets. 

Or rents that let the fish leap out o' the nets. 

In vast untidy state, supreme, a king. 

Ruled Miller Maurice, lord of everything. 

A monarch in the vale above his peers. 

Loose, independent, jolly, full of jeers — 



6S The Return to Nature 

Aye girding at the yoke he never bore, 
And heaping scorn upon the ways of yore. 

The Miller loved Monsalvy's falcon eye, 
So many a darting arrow let they fly 
That day at Farmer Esmond : 

" Who was he ? 
No yeoman firm upon his father's lea, 
A serving-man, almost : a payer of rent. 
In nothing better, little different 
To them that delved his glebe and took his wage ; 
Leaving his sons service for heritage — 
A comrade but no master." 

So the time 
Ran on ; one dancing star began to climb 
Her station on the faded mountain-brae ; 
The sun sloped westward in a rosier ray, 
And more than once the jug went to the vat. 
Bibulous, merry, eloquent, they sat 
Oblivious of the world. The red sun sank. 
And milking time was past ; and still they drank. 

Esmond^s great voice came booming down the vale. 

And once Monsalvy started and turned pale. 

But swiftly Maurice jeered : " Thou'rt free, lad. Sit I 

Methinks a man's a man, a wit's a wit ; — 

And that's not Farmer Esmond ! " 

So they laughed. 
And once again the boisterous comrades quaffed. 
Monsalvy's eyes gleamed like a will o' the wisp ; 
The lines about his mouth were proud and crisp ; 
Well off his arrogant brow he pushed his hat. 



The Return to Nature 69 

He tilted back his chair, laughing, and sat, 
And puffed a long cigar between his lips 
(But crushed a rose with trembling finger tips), 
While Maurice egged him on from bad to worse. 

So Farmer Esmond entered with a curse. 
Stood, glowering — silent, huge, irate, uncouth — 
Then stretched a mighty hand and hurled the youth 
Out of his seat, and shook him : 

" Drunken lout ! 
Go ! Milk the beasts that wait their turn without ! '^ 
But something in Monsalvy burned like fire. 
And all his face grew withered, sour, and dire. 
As harsh and white as honesty in pod — 
*' Nay ! (cried he) Never, by the name of God, 
I'll cross thy doors, thou fool and father o' fools. 
Save once to-morrow^ for my wage and tools — 
No slave am I ! 

And Esmond stared a while — 
Pitied the lad, as drunk ; with half a smile. 
Shook his sagacious head, and left the pair. 
And breathed the freshness of the twilit air. 

The morrow morn found Esmond at his gate — 
He smiled, and wagged a roguish, grizzled pate 
On seeing Monsalvy : 

" So, my lad, what's up ? 
Hast left thy tantrums in the Miller's cup ? " 
But that harsh boy, still brooding, shook his head. 
And spurned the proffered grasp, frowning, and said : 
" My wage, sir ! " Took his tools, and turned and went, 
An image of a dismal discontent — 



70 The Rettirn to Nature 

Leaving the Farm behind him, down the hill ; 
For there he bode, with Maurice, at the Mill. 

So Esmond faced the harvest month alone. 
Five labourers with him, but his foreman gone. 
He missed the lad, the quick young spirit of fire. 
The lightning thoughts of youth that never tire ; 
Even as the team, a-field or in the stall. 
Still hankered for their leader's lusty call ; 
Even as the dogs at night would bark and howl : 
They loved the graceless boy. The Farmer's jowl 
Dropt loose and shapeless 'neath his careworn eyes. 
He looked the wearier for his giant size — 
A man that had no pleasure in his face — 
And felt his forty-odd years, yet toiled apace. 
Reaping his wealth, and brought his harvest home, 
And put the ploughshare in the unyielding loam. 

Meanwhile Monsalvy laboured at the Mill, 

And served the wheel, still dreaming of the hill. 

He loved the fields his team had ploughed, his hand 

Had sown, he loved the deep and fertile land 

That prospered 'neath his rule and knew his law : 

With jealous eyes that harvesting he saw ! 

Because his barn, his brook, his byre, his brood. 

Are to the farmer as his flesh and blood, — 

A part of life and more than money's worth . . . 

There is a magic in our Mother Earth 

That draws us to her while we delve the clod : 

Our fertile fields become the fringe of God. 

Often Monsalvy let the Miller tell 

Old tales, o' nights ; and strayed ; and climbed the fell 



The Return to Nature 7 1 

As silent as a wild thing of the woods ; 

And leaned, among the ferns and foxglove -hoods, 

Against the wall his brawny hands had heaped 

And gazed upon the pallid field new-reaped 

(Now widowed of its wealth of yellow corn) 

As mournful as a mother who, forlorn, 

Still folds the garments of a child long dead. 

Then down upon the stones he'd lay his head 

And bide unfortunate, though all went well, 

Until the moon came silent o'er the fell. 

The summer passed in sad prosperity. . . 
The top leaves reddened on our cherry-tree 
Ere Michaelmas. That year, the first great cold 
Fell just a week too soon, on mount and wold. 
One morning, snow on every peak was seen. 
Though still our valley prospered mild and green ; 
The buck-wheat in the fields was all uncut ! 
Then every man in every farm and hut 
Rose with the dawn and grasped his reaping hook 
And fared afield ; the shepherd dropt his crook. 
The ploughman left his team, the miller even 
Stopped work, and sent us up a lusty seven 
To help us reap in haste the threatened crop ; 
Because the snow was on the mountain-top. 

Methinks you know the way the buck-wheat grows ? 

A foam, a froth of white, just tinged with rose 

And fringed with daintiest green. Such tones of pearl 

And dawn and snow : a plant that's like a girl ! 

As delicate, as difficult to rear — 

The frail capricious darling of the year. 



72 The Return to Nature 

Though, in our hills, summer is but a name, 
Four months of sunshine are its modest claim. 
Sow it in June when all the frosts are fled. 
Tremble, and reap it ere the Cantal's head 
Be white and gleaming with the October snows : 
Rime, hail and wind are aye its deadliest foes. 
In stalk, in flower, or in the blackening seed 
With stems turned crimson, 'tis a fragile weed — 
Ungrateful. Nay, what say I ? Holy and good ! 
The buck-wheat is the valley's daily food. 

Till noon was past, with Maurice at the Mill 
Monsalvy stayed, then loitered up the hill 
And, hidden, gazed on yonder southern slope : 
The buck-wheat field. . . In what a mood of hope 
Himself had rolled the grain upon a board 
And picked the largest for the chosen hoard 
Himself had scattered on the furrowed field ! 
Three times the soil was ploughed . . . 

Behold the yield ! 

The croft is full of bending figures now. 

The women clasp the stems in sheaves, a row 

Of reapers sweep their sickles at the roots ; 

And soon the bunch is tied. But little brooks 

Our labour, where the labourers are too few . . . 

One fourth the crop was standing when the dew 

Of dusk began to fall ; the wind grew chill ; 

The swelling moon sailed o'er the snowy hill. 

Green in a crimson sunset. Full of light 

And peace and splendour came the inclement night. 



The Return to Nature 73 

The Farmer dropped the sickle from his hold 

Dead beat : — " WeVe toiled since dawn ! Ay, lads, 

I'm old, 
And there's a mint of work in yard and stall ! 
Let's home and get our supper, reapers all — 
We've done our best, my men ; the wager's lost. 
We fain must leave an acre to the frost." 

They went. Monsalvy lingered in his lair. 

The dew began to twinkle here and there 

In frosty diamonds on the straws and weeds ; . . . 

Straight up the buck-wheat stood, its blackened seeds 

Swollen to ripeness, rich with future food. 

He looked upon the crop and called it good . . . 

Just then the moon sent down a glistering ray 

Where Esmond's reaping hook forgotten lay, 

Itself a crescent moon among the stalks . . . 

Sometimes a simple chattel lives and talks ! 

Monsalvy stooped and took it ; like a man 

Who walks in dreams, his fingertip he ran 

Along its edge — " Ay, ay ! I know the tool, 

'Tis Farmer Esmond's — poor faint-hearted fool ! " 

Then broad he swung his arm, his body swayed ; 
The moon looked down, reflected in the blade 
That glinted through the dusk ; and as he wrought 
An old emotion swelled his melting thought : 
The worker's pleasure in his work well done . . . 
All the old days awakened, one by one, 
And something in him stirred of wise and mild — 
He looked upon the glebe, at last, and smiled. 
As (partly in protection, part in pride) 



74 The Return to Nature 

*^ Ay ! Esmond's growing old ! '' he said, and sighed. 
"There needs a younger man about the place ! " 

Midnight ! the bell booms from the village tower. 

Our valley sleeps and dreams this many an hour, 

Its drowsy head propped on a wearier arm, 

And yet Monsalvy strode towards the Farm. 

All slept in shadow, so he stooped and threw 

A pebble at the pane ; his aim was true — 

There came a stir within, a glimmering spark, 

A square of yellow flamed upon the dark ; 

The Farmer, stooping, flung the casement back : 

— "Master, sleep well: our buck- wheat's all in stack!" 

Monsalvy said. And Esmond sobbed : "My friend ! '' 

So then and there the quarrel had an end. 

Olmet. 
August, zgoj. 



II 

TOO BUSY 

When Fanny Morin sought her mother's cot, 
Her health half-shattered by the servant's lot, 
And sadly changed by town, and pale (they say. 
Who met her in the market place that day). 
She left the train at Conde, trudging the loam 
Across the byways towards her country home. 

The harvest still was ripe on field and rise. 
And Fanny gazed with once-accustomed eyes 



The Return to Nature 75 

At all that waving gold on either hand ; — 
She smiled to see how Farmer Varney's land 
Was reaped in part ere other yields were ripe. 
Ay, Farmer Varney with his gun and pipe ! . . . 
She knew him from her birth, that stalwart foe 
Of trout or partridge, rabbit, hare or doe — 
He'd fain be glad to see the stubble again ! 
So Fanny walked, remembering, o'er the plain, 
Not looking where she went, and set her foot 
Deep in a rut, or caught it in a root 
(I know not), but she fell, with one sharp cry, 
To find herself so hurt, and no one nigh. 

The bone was broken, sure ! It throbbed with pangs 

As keen and poisonous as a viper's fangs ; 

And far and wide there reached the stubble field, 

With not a shed, a barn, a hut, to shield 

The sufferer, who must lie there all forlorn ! . . . 

But near at hand there stood a rick of corn 

Waiting the threshers on the prickly croft. 

And thither Fanny dragged herself (with oft 

A sigh, a groan), and lay there in the shade. 

While noon grew hotter, sick, but unafraid. 

The place was lonely, all the reaping done. 

The long hours trailed, and no one passed, not one. 

For other harvests claimed the labourers' days ; 

But Fanny knew the land and all its ways. 

Far off, she knew, ran wide the embowered lanes. 

But close at hand the track across the plains 

Led from the Farm to the Eighteen- Acre wheat — 

She had seen it, could she stand upon her feet ! 



76 The Return to Nature 

The vast wide tripled field beyond the burn, 
Where men were harvesting who must return. 

The pain grew worse. " But still, I shall not die!" 
Smiled Fanny. " When the reapers pass, I'll cry. 
They'll turn and see me from the further stile, 
The Farmer'll send me home ; 'tis scarce a mile ; 
Mother, no doubt, can set my ankle straight." 

Only that night the reapers laboured late, 
For prudence bade the corn be piled in stack : 
The threatening west was full of cloud and rack, 
The moon rode red across a windy heaven — 
They left the twilit field long after seven, 
And Fanny heard them tramp across the land 
Singing a glee, jolly and gay, a band 
Of lusty country lads. She knew them all. 
Dim forms and voices, and began to call — 
" Here, Thomas ! Alfred ! John ! " 

She called in vain. 
What was her pipe against their jovial strain ? 
They heard her not ; they passed ; her chance was 

gone ; 
There in the dark she met the night alone. 

All she endured before the reddening morn 
Assured her that she should not die forlorn, 
I cannot tell ; what childish harrowing fears 
Of maidens reared in town so many years : 
A dread of scurrying rats within the rick, 
A horror of grey faces crowding thick. 
And loneliness, and pain. But aye the worst 



The Returit to Nature 77 

Was that unslaked, increasing, aching thirst — 
The thirst of fever ! such a desert-drouth : 
For twenty hours nothing had wet her mouth. 

^* But not much longer, now — not long ! " she said. 
And reared against the rick a dizzy head. 
She marked the smoke that curled among the trees, 
The children's laughter rippling down the breeze, 
The lowing of the cattle in their pen, 
The comfortable homes of happy men — 
So near — ^just then the bells rang out ... 

Alas ! 
Sunday, The livelong day, no soul would pass. 

Then Fanny sank upon the soil and cried. 
And knew such anguish as the Christ who died. 
And sought the Unseen Deliverer, even as He — 
*' O God, my God, hast Thou forsaken me ? " 
But still the church bells rang o'er wood and plain, 
And Fanny humbly turned to hope again. 
She stretched her feverish hands along the ground, 
And when some dew-bespangled herb she found 
She laid that freshness on her burning lips. 
" Sailors are thirstier still on stranded ships. 
And here all round is corn instead of bread. 
It might have been a rick of hay " (she said) 
"Thank God!" 

And meekly bowed a patient head. 

On Monday morning, after four I think — 
(The sky was still a little faintly pink) — 
The Farmer hurrying towards his harvest-croft 



LofC. 



78 The Return to Nature 

Marked something on the ground, amort and soft, 
Stretched on a wisp of straw beside the stack — 
*^Some drunken tramp" (said he), "these girls, 

alack ! 
Go boozing at the Boar ! " He went his ways. 
It was the busiest of his harvest-days. 
A Farmer, when his corn is fit to reap, 
Has but one only thought ; awake, asleep, 
His fancy never quits the golden field ! 
He measures in his mind the annual yield. 
Sees that the thronged ears be full in grain. 
Yet not so ripe they'll scatter on the plain 
The wheat that is a nation's yearly stay ; 
Looks at the skies a hundred times a day, 
Fears a red moon, low clouds, a sudden gale. 
For all foretell that scourge of Heaven, the hail 
Which yet may couch his crop and spill the corn — 
There was a touch of tempest in the morn 
That day. They reaped — until the rising moon 
(And none but she) saw Fanny in a swoon. 

The fourth day dawned and Varney passed again, 
And not without a swift reproachful pain 
He marked the sleeping figure by the corn — 
But huddled now and strangely all-forlorn. 
*^ She's hurt (he said). She's ill. Who can she be ? 
At dinner-time I'll step so far and see." 
He thought the figure moved a feeble hand. 
Went five steps forward o'er the stubbly land, 
Then turned, and gazed an instant at the gate, 
Uncertain . . . But he hurried on, being late. 



The Return to Nature 79 

For a man's own affairs will aye come first ! 

He passed, and Fanny lay there mad with thirst. . . 

All day the sun poured from a leaden rift 

Like fire. . . One reaper, bent in two to lift 

A load of sheaves and toss them on the stack. 

Cried out and fell unconscious on his back, 

Beyond the burn, i' the busy harvest-field ; 

It was the Farmer found the shade that healed, 

Loosed the loose shirt, wet the empurpled face. 

Called up the wain, and, at a funeral pace. 

Drove home the sufferer, careful of the sick — 

I'he self-same man left Fanny by the rick. 

That day, tow^ards dusk, the expected storm began. 
White, violet, rose, the jagged wild-fire ran 
Athwart the livid clouds ; the thunder roared. 
Rattled and clapped and fell ; the waters poured 
Unbroken down from heaven upon the plain : 
You never saw such sheets of blinding rain ! 
Each tree, a fountain spouting on the w^eald : 
Woe to the uncut, ungathered harvest field. 
A little mouldering str|iw was all that told 
Of those ripe acres of divinest gold ! 
All afternoon, all night, the rain fell fast 
With gusts of tearing wind — the chilly blast 
That turns the poplars yellow ere their time 
And ends the summer in our uncertain clime. 

On Wednesday, though the rain fell thick and white,. 
Our anxious farmer, in a sorry plight. 
Ran to his croft and saw that Something Black 
Half-buried 'neath the wind-dismantled stack — 



So The Return to Nature 

This time, with what a sinking of the heart ! — 
Strode up, and drew the dripping form apart 
Noting the frail, unconscious, wasted grace. 
The tender beauty of the waxen face 
Remote — yet so familiar — 

" God ! '' he said, 
" Just God ! Tis little Fanny Morin. . . Dead ! " 

Not of our mountains is my story told. 
Though true enough and witnessed manifold — 
For Beaufort was the place, last year the time — 
It might be true of any place or clime 
So long as men dwell separate from Man, 
Each folded in his busy private plan. 
Encased in dreams and cares, as buds are furled, 
Nor heeding that, beyond our widest scan, 
All round our noblest duty, lies a world. 

£)lmet. 

September, 1903. 



A FRENCH COUNTRY BOOK. 

The Fields of France 

By MADAME MARY DUCLAUX 
(A. Mary F. Robinson). 

Crown 8vo, Five Shillings net. 

The Times: ** Madame Duclaux is in love with her 
subject, and brings to it a mind full of sympathy, an 
imagination quickened by knowledge and tender asso- 
ciation and a sense of beauty at once catholic, penetrating, 
and minutely observant. She is also economic in a large 
and liberal sense, deeply versed in the history of rural 
France and well-skilled in applying its teachings to the 
study of modern conditions. But Sociology is a very arid 
title to give to essays so instinct with life, movement and 
poetry. Madame Duclaux has much more affinity with 
Wordsworth in his better moods than with a Social 
Science Congress. ... It is its variety, its unobtrusive 
scholarship, its wide range of knowledge, the easy grace 
and blithe modulation of its phrasing, the gentle kindly 
temper, shrewd insight and lively sensibility of the writer 
that contrive to make it a book to be read with delight 
and studied with profit." 

Daily News : '* Everywhere she gives the sense of that 
wonderful world of out-of-doors which seems fading from 
the horizon of the modern town-dweller. There is a 
reaching back to primitive things ; night and silence ; 
the thrill and magic of growing life ; all the spirit of 
spring and harvest — and in this delightful land she shows 
the French peasant. ... In this rural life there is the 
secret of a civilisation which has vanished from England." 

Daily Telegraph : * ' The little book presents a perfect 
gallery of pictures, a sort of literary complement to Corot 
and Millet. All lovers of pure literature will find some- 
thing to like and to remember in pages so freshly and 
sympathetically inspired." 



Daily Chronicle : * ' Madame Duclaux has very curious 
particulars to give us regarding local industries and social 
methods. . . . Her prose is that of a poet. . . . Her 
account of the Cantal is almost Theocritean." 

Morning Leader: ** All this vivid colouring is sustained 
and strengthened by knowledge — knowledge of the 
structural foundation of mountain, valley, and plain, as 
well as of the nature, habit, and methods of cultivation 
of flowers, and crops, and fruits. . . . The experiments 
and many difficulties that wait upon the half-solved 
problem — the problem more nearly solved in France than 
in any other European country — of how to settle a 
peasant population on the land. ... A book to be un- 
reservedly recommended. " 

Manchester Guardian: *' A book which we should 
much like to see imitated in England. . . . Full of sub- 
stantial matter, yet it wears its information lightly. Here 
a poet has not found it wearisome to examine statistics, 
registers, and reports for the hard facts on which country 
existence depends ; here a sociologist has no scorn for 
the artist's eye lingering on the landscape. . . . Madame 
Duclaux is not merely a shrewd, painstaking observer 
with a poetic eye and excellent style, she is a learned 
historian, and has matter for a standard of judgment, 
a comparison which the ordinary sociologist too often 
lacks. . . . The problems in France are our problems. " 

To-Day : **It is, perhaps, the best book on agricul- 
tural France which has yet appeared in England." 

Athenceum : ** Madame Duclaux has produced a de- 
lightful book." 



London : CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd., 
II Henrietta Street, W,C. 



p> 



The Return to Nature 



Madame Mary Duclaux 



CHAPMAN & HALL 



\ 



i 



ii 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
(724) 779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 456 793 6 



.\ 


,. is" 






f- 


M.<^ 


1 

t 


i4 i, \ 


\\ 


..1 



'.'.ui'J 












•S'i'r 



■*,»i... .';.^h' 



